


Now That’s What I Call Strategy

by knightemperor



Series: Shuake Week 2020 [2]
Category: Persona 5
Genre: M/M, Shuake Week 2020, day 2 games, this is just akira and goro flirting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-17
Updated: 2020-11-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:09:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27605390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knightemperor/pseuds/knightemperor
Summary: Goro and Akira play a game of chess.For Shuake Week 2020
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Amamiya Ren, Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Series: Shuake Week 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2017106
Comments: 3
Kudos: 55





	Now That’s What I Call Strategy

The door jingled and Akira looked up from the cup he was wiping. It was Akechi, giving Sojiro a polite bow and coming to his usual seat. He had been visiting Leblanc a lot lately. Akira really liked spending time with the boy. They would sometimes chat and other times just quietly enjoying each other’s company. Akechi was often busy with something, work related or school related. He sympathized with him. That pile of homework he had put aside for Phantom Thief business was looming over him. And he still had part time work he wanted to sign up for. Life was stressful.

Akechi ordered his usual and Akira worked to make it the way he liked it. Sojiro had been allowing him to help with orders, and Akechi had become his customer now. The boy seemed to like his coffee, which helped Akira’s confidence. After serving the detective his coffee, the two drifted into their respective zones. Akechi’s eyes were glued to his papers. Akira was focused on getting that pesky stain from a cup. The cup had been sitting for a while and there was an ugly ring of brown along the bottom. Akira thought it wouldn’t be a problem and washed it, but it was still there after drying it. It was only cosmetic but he wanted things to look nice. Completely absorbed in his task, Akira didn’t hear Akechi speak up.

“Akira, one of the customers wants you.” Sojiro’s voice managed to break through Akira’s concentration. He jumped a little and frantically set the cup down. It was then he realized Akechi was looking sheepishly at him. 

“I’m sorry, it wasn’t anything important. You can go back to cleaning.” The detective said. He scratched his face nervously.

“No, no it’s ok. I don’t think this stain is coming out anyways. I might as well give up.” He handed the cup to Sojiro, who looked at it. The man gave Akira a nod and confirmed the stain was permanent. It would never look pristine again. No loss though. It was plenty usable and he rolled his eyes over Akira getting worked up about it in the first place. 

“Um, anyways what was it you wanted?”

“Oh,” Akechi said, looking a bit surprised. “I asked if you wanted to play a game of chess.” 

“Sure.” He looked to Sojiro for permission and the man just told him to be prepared to break if they got any other customers. They brought the board, set it down on the bar and set up the pieces. 

“Do you want to be black or white?” Akechi asked. 

“I don’t care either way.”

“Alright. I’ll take white, then.” He spun the board around so the white side was facing himself. “I’ll start.”

“You just wanted to make the first move, didn’t you,” Akira teased as Akechi moved one of his pawns. 

“Perhaps,” Akechi responded with a smile. “It’s always good to take the initiative when the opportunity strikes.”

“But it’s also good to let your opponents go first so you can analyze their moves and plan ahead,” Akira said, moving his own pawn. 

“True. However, in chess, there’s a clear advantage to white. Being able to move first allows me to have more options and always be one step ahead of you.” 

“But it doesn’t matter if the other player is more skilled. The advantage given to the first turn is so slight, if black plays better, they’ll win.” 

They had freed up space for their other pieces to move now. Bishops began to go on the move. 

“The way you’re saying that makes it seem like you’re more skilled than me. If I recall our past games, you’re near my level but not quite enough.” Akechi captured one of Akira’s pawns and smiled at him. “You’ll regret not playing white. If you want to win, you need to take every advantage you can.”

Akira looked at the board, face obscured by his glasses. “I’d rather take you down against the odds. It’s more fun that way. Don’t you root for the underdog when watching sports?”

“Ha. That’s assuming I watch sports. I don’t particularly care for them, ” Akechi waved in the direction of the TV. “They can be fun to play at times but watching them has never been really interesting to me.” 

“Oh? What do you enjoy watching, then?” Akira asked. 

“I don’t really watch TV. I mostly read.”

“Those philosophy books of yours?” Akira captured a piece.

“I quote Hegel once and now that’s all you think I read?” Akechi groaned.

“Do you read other things?” 

“Of course I read other things. Fantasy, historical novels, biographies, sci-fi, mystery. I would read more, but work and school take up a lot of my free time.” 

“Wow, you’re more of a nerd than I thought,” Akira said. He chuckled as Akechi glared at him. “And now, you’re distracted.” He captured one of the boy's knights. 

"So you're playing dirty, I see," Akechi chided. 

"Hey, you were the one to say I should use everything at my disposal to beat you. I'm just following your advice."

"And I thought you wanted to beat me with skill?"

"Being distracting is a skill." Akira gave the detective a smug smile and waggled his eyebrows. He could be very distracting if he wanted to be. Akechi just rolled his eyes.

They exchanged a few more pieces and Akira could tell they were entering the end game soon. He needed to find a way to corner Akechi's king. The queen was unfortunately still up and running. Luckily, Akira still had his as well. The chances of him slipping a pawn to the back to give him an extra edge were very slim. Akechi's control of the board was strong and there was nothing he didn't notice. Akira admitted he may have boasted a bit too much earlier. He studied chess just so he could keep up with Akechi, but even that didn't seem to be enough. Akechi was just good at every single game they played. Billards, darts, chess, arcade games, even batting cages. He was good at them all. Akira was able to beat him only some of the time.

But the fact Akechi was so skilled made Akira all the more eager to try harder. Being pushed to the limit, even if it was only casual games, it was exhilarating. And he could have no better partner than Akechi. Something about the boy drew Akira to him. At first he thought it was only their bond as a confidant, but now Akira was sure there was something else. It pulled at him every time they met, even if their rank never increased. It tugged at his mind whenever he thought about him. It caused Akira to make excuses to spend more time with him. 

Akechi grinned as he took another piece. Fuck. He really let himself get distracted by thoughts of the very boy sitting across from him. He had to focus. Focus! Time for operation stall Akechi until he thought of a good strategy.

"So, do you have anything planned later?”

“Hm? I suppose I don’t have much to do today, since I’m playing chess with you instead of doing work.”

“Oops.” Akira looked away sheepishly.

“Why do you ask?” Akechi glanced up from the board. Akira could not believe how cute he was looking at him like that. It made him feel a bit guilty that he was just grasping for conversation topics to distract his rival.

“Just wanted to know if you wanted to hang out more. I don’t really have much going on later.” Akira lied. He had plenty he could do but he was always willing to make time for the detective. 

“As long as you make sure to close the cafe and don’t get into any trouble,” Sojiro interjected. The boys both jumped. They had completely forgotten about him. In fact, they forgot about the cafe entirely. There were a couple customers, but Sojiro had gotten to them already. 

“I’ll keep an eye on him for you,” Akechi said, smiling brightly.

“And I’ll make sure the cafe gets closed.” Akira added. 

Sojiro offered them a fond smile and just shook his head. 

They turned their attention back to the board and Akira realized he had completely forgotten what his next moves were going to be. Well. He could only hope the same had happened to Akechi. A quick look did nothing to confirm or deny his hopes. Well shit. What last resort did he have? Eating the pieces like that meme Futaba liked to send? 

“You know Akechi,” Akira said sweetly. “You look really cute when you’re thinking so hard.”

“W-what?” Akechi sputtered. That did the trick. He was completely thrown off, blushing all the way to his ears. And even better, he placed his piece in a particularly vulnerable position that would leave a lot of holes in his defenses. 

“And I’ll be taking that~” Akira snatched the piece up and waved it in front of Akechi’s face. The boy’s face morphed from flustered to enraged. 

“You bastard!” He seethed.

“Hey, I told you I was good at being distracting.”

“I admit, I wasn’t expecting that. But it won’t work again. That’s your problem, Kurusu. Once you’ve shown your hand, whatever plan you have fails. It might be good one time, but that will only win you the battle, not the war.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure. That last mistake you made cost you a lot. It’ll take some effort to make up for that. So I’d say my surprise attack won me the war.”

“Don’t get cocky. You haven’t won anything yet. As long as my king remains on the board, I haven’t lost. I can easily recover from that misplay and then, I’ll crush you.” 

Akechi sharply placed a piece down and looked at Akira, with a smug grin on his face. Akira could help but feel one forming on his face in return. The exact same smile he wore in the metaverse when he faced a tough opponent. 

“Bring it on!” Akira said. 

The two played furiously, slapping their pieces down. The rest of the world had faded out again and the only things that mattered were them and the chess board. Akira felt the pressure as Goro really was recovering from his mistake. He had to attack and keep attacking. Sacrificing a few pieces was a bit risky, but Akira wanted to keep his opening. 

Finally, he saw it. His chance at success. In 3 moves, he had a chance for checkmate. Akechi saw it too, if his annoyance wasn’t clear on his face. There were a few moves he could still do, but it wasn’t looking good for Akechi. Akira reviewed his options in his head and thought of the counter plays. Akira began trying to think of the possible moves he should do in those cases where Akechi survived. There were a lot though, Akira would have to try and plan for a lot.

Much to his surprise, Akechi instead toppled his king over. “There’s no need to prolong this any longer. You win.”

“What happened to ‘as long as my king is on the board, I haven’t lost?’” Akira asked. 

“I prolonged things enough. I made another misplay a few turns ago but you didn’t seem to notice. I thought I could turn things around, but no matter what I do, I’ll still have a checkmate eventually. The longest I could survive is 5 turns.”

Akira sweated. Five turns?? Was Akechi that good where he was thinking that many turns ahead? Akira only planned about 2 or 3 turns, 4 if it wasn’t too complex.

“Well. I guess that means your advantage was of no help to you.”

“If we had played fairly, I wouldn’t have had any issue taking you down. After all, I was dominating for quite a while.”

“I did play fairly!” Akira fake gasped. 

“Calling your opponent cute in an attempt to throw them off their game is not playing fairly, Kurusu.”

“Maybe I wasn’t doing it to throw you off your game.” Akira said. Oh no that was embarrassing. His fingers reflexively went to his hair. 

Akechi just looked at him, blushing a little. “Oh.”

“Yeah.” 

They sat in awkward silence for a couple seconds before Akechi spoke up. “Um, did you have any plans for things to do tonight? Because I was thinking, maybe we could take the chess board upstairs for a round 2. Make it a best of 3.” He glanced up at Akira in that illegally cute way. To think someone who works to serve the law would be breaking it like this. It was evil. 

Akira nodded. “That sounds good. Game good.” He had been reduced to a stuttering fool! What a disaster! 

“I’m glad you think so. Chess is a lot of fun, especially playing with you. I couldn’t ask for a better rival.” 

They started clearing up the board and putting it away. Akechi decided he needed to get a bit more work done and Akira really needed to go back to taking care of customers. Sojiro was too nice. He really let Akira sit there and play chess with Akechi. He knew Boss would want him to make up the time spent so he took extra care in serving everyone. 

As the night crept up and the day retreated beyond the horizon, Akira poured one last cup for Akechi, before they retreated upstairs. He handed it to the boy, who looked surprised. 

“It’s on the house. I couldn’t ask for a better rival either.”

**Author's Note:**

> I’m honestly really fond of this one. I really like slice of life stories with Goro and Akira, not really doing anything other than hanging out with each other. I hope you guys enjoyed it too!


End file.
